Curiosity

Blogger.com very kindly hosts my blog site. And they very kindly keep statistics for me, too, so I can see how many people look at my blog in a day, or how many have looked at it over its lifespan.  I can see what browsers people use to read my ramblings, and I can even see where my public is located.  And that last bit is very curious. 

Look at this:



I noticed this last night. Thirty-five pageviews from Russia?

 Is this for real? I have readers in Russia?  Who? And why? And how? 

I must be a cat, because these questions are killing me.

Christmas 2012

decorating the tree

This Christmas season was kind of weird. I was pretty excited to be finished with school on the 6th because I thought I'd be able to spend lots of time with my family doing our fun little traditional things—like building our giant gingerbread house, etc.  And with two weeks at home while my kids were still in school, I thought I might make some homemade gifts for my family too. Instead I spent a lot of time sewing for people.

First I made a wedding dress for my niece, Gloria.  It turned out really nice, and she was very happy with it.  Then I did some alterations for my cousin's daughter and her friend, who were in another wedding reception. I was glad to be able to help Gloria, and give her a homemade wedding gift, and I got paid for the alterations, which is always nice :-). But they did take up a lot of time.

These are the only snowflakes
we had this year.  :-( 
Lindsey made them at school.

Well, OK. My kids were out of school by the time the dresses were done, but I thought we could still make a gingerbread house and snowflakes and stuff.  Nope. This year the kids drew each others' names and had to make home-made gifts for each other. I offered to help.  Even though  we drew names at the beginning of the month, nobody really had any great ideas and I really wasn't available to help until school was out for them. So we spent a lot of time from Friday morning (the 21st) until about 8:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve finishing up gifts.

To throw an extra wrench into the mix, our first paycheck after three months was due on the 21st. (Bruce started subbing for Granite School District in November; three months of no job or income is another story.) But someone in some office made a mistake and he didn't get paid! And, to make it even nicer, everyone was gone home for winter break (school district) so they can't fix it until school is back in session.  Thank goodness for my excellent family who has helped us more than we ever deserve, and who pitched in for Christmas, too. So Bruce and I spent most of Saturday doing all of our holiday shopping last-minute.

It sounds kind of frustrating and horrible, huh?  And it was, momentarily.

But Christmas Day was excellent! And the very best part was our new tradition of the homemade gifts—I think everyone really liked what they got.

Michael got a magic wallet from Ryan.  Ryan and I had a hard time figuring out exactly how to make the silly thing. It was a real brain puzzle for us—something Michael excells at (making us wish he could help us make it!).

Jessica made a Robin Hood hat for Jason. He put it on immediately and he's been wearing it every day.

Lindsey got a bookmark, cross-stitched by Rachel.

Brandon got four juggling balls and instructions on how to juggle from Lindsey.

Michael made Ryan a stuffed-toy creeper (some creature from the game Minecraft). Michael says it's also a private joke between him and Ryan. :-)

Kaylie got a cream and gold brocade pillow with navy-blue tassels, a la Jason.

Brandon cut a pendant from walnut and put a picture of Rachel playing with Tucker on it. Then he made it into a necklace for Rachel.

And Jessica got ballerina and jester dolls from Kaylie.

So that was all lots of fun. Then, of course, we had a nice time going to visit family for a few hours. We finished off the day by coming home and lighting a fire in the fireplace and watching Brave while we had Christmas munchies to snack on. 

Jason said this Christmas was really great; he liked the homemade gift exchange and enjoyed visiting family more than usual. So, yes, Christmas Day was very good.

The question is this:  I actually already bought all the candy and stuff for a gingerbread house (ages ago, actually).  Should we still make it, or just eat the candy and call it good?

And She Does It Again!

Mwah-hahaha!

Grandma?

Last weekend I babysat my cute little niece and nephew, Lizzy and David.

Lizzy watches a movie with Kaylie and Rachel. And drinks with her feet, apparently. ;-)

Lizzy is three and pretty much just played with my girls the whole time—I hardly knew she was there. David is fourteen months old and he is just so darn cute! 

He walked all around and chattered and had a fine old time.

What's this?

Aha!

He played with the contents of my lid-drawer.  Later he played with one of the girls' old baby dolls for a while.  At first he snuggled it and said, "Baay-beee!" Then he started throwing her around. In the evening he was a little tired, but we had set up his travel-crib in the living room (for space reasons—Lindsey planned to sleep in there with him) and my family wasn't ready for bed yet. We were watching The Prince of Persia, so we sat David on the couch with us, with a blanket and a cup of milk.  When the movie got exciting he said, "Whoooooaa!"

He is such a happy, pleasant little guy.  I thought I wouldn't mind having another baby. When I started to fall asleep in front of the movie (a common occurrence) it was bedtime. David went to bed with no complaint, and fell right asleep.

Then he woke up at 4:30. I thought I'd just see if I could ignore him and he'd go back to sleep. (Now you are learning something about my parenting.)  He was OK with that.  He didn't go back to sleep, but he didn't fuss either.  He just talked to himself for a while, so I got to doze a little.  But at 5:30 he was getting impatient with me.

What's this?  Cheerios on the floor?
David woke Lindsey, Rachel and Ryan at 5:30, too. I guess Ryan decided to sleep on the couch after that.

I got up and gave him some milk in hopes that he would still go back to sleep. He said, "Thanks!" But when I headed back to my room he complained—he was having none of that. So I got out of bed and took him out of the crib; he had a dirty diaper. I thought Oh yeah. Maybe having a baby isn't so much fun. Not with a 5:30 a.m. wake-up call.  But after about 20 minutes I was truly awake and I thought that I wouldn't mind another baby at all.

However, I am not pregnant nor am I planning to be.  I hate to say it, but at my age and with the ages of my kids . . . Ooooooh! Grandma-hood could be just around the corner for me. Am I really old enough to be a Grandma? 

Couldn't be!!

But, really, I guess I am. My parents and some of my older siblings and several of my friends were grandparents younger than this.

Weird!


Cutie!



Finals

It was a stressful two weeks, but my final projects are finally finished.  They were finally finalized at 1:30 a.m. Monday night/Tuesday morning.

"What does Robin Hood have to do with this?" you ask.

For 20th Century I had to choose one design element from one decade of 20th century fashion and use it to create three contemporary designs, choose fabric swatches for the designs, and illustrate them front and back.  I had to mount a historical picture of the design element I chose, the fabric swatches, and my drawings on a black foam-core board and do an in-class presentation of the whole thing.  I turned this one in yesterday (Tuesday, Dec. 4).

For Illustration I had to draw three original designs in full color (this one was due today).

For History of Costume I had to choose one design element from one period of historic fashion—from 3000 B.C. up until 1970—and use it to create three contemporary designs, choose fabric swatches for the designs, and illustrate them front and back.  I had to mount a historical picture of the design element I chose, the fabric swatches, and my drawings on a black foam-core board and do an in-class presentation of the whole thing.  (Sound familiar?)  This is due tomorrow (Thursday, Dec. 6). There will be a written exam for this class, too.

Now, if I had realized that Janet (my History and 20th-Century teacher) would let me use the same work for both classes I wouldn't have chosen an element from the Middle Ages for my history final; I would have definitely saved myself some time and effort and done 20th-Century for both classes. But I had already started on the Middle Ages project. Oh well.
At least I was able to use my History final for my Illustration class final. Yay!

For 20th-Century I decided to use Jackie Kennedy as my inspiration—partly because it sounded easy, but mostly because I realized that I already had fabrics I could use for the swatches.

 My designs mimic Jackie's style with slim, sheath dresses, and boxy jackets with 3/4-length sleeves.

A creamy silk/linen-blend sheath dress topped by an aqua jacket with beige embroidery.

The same sheath dress paired with a pink jacket. The jacket's hem, sleeves and lapels are trimmed with the cream silk/linen, and edged with self-fringing.

A brown tweed sheath dress with a reversed shawl collar in cream crepe-backed satin.

Janet really liked these; she said if she were a buyer looking for this style, she'd buy the whole line. (!) And she said I had beautiful illustrations. :-)

For my History project I chose dagging as my design element.  Dagging is that squared edge you see on the sleeve of Robin Hood's tunic. ("Aha!" you say.) I did choose an orginal 14th-century source picture, as requested; I won't be showing Errol Flynn to my class.

This guy is wearing a dagged cloak (with a chaperon, which probably also has a liripipe).

I came up with all kinds of great names for my dagging collection:  The Dagged Edge (prounounced like jagged)—or maybe The Dagged Line.  Or how about Well I'll be Dagged! (not prounounced like jagged); or—this one is great!— Dag Nab It!

Well, anyway, here are my designs:

Here we have a blue suede skirt with dagging at the hem, a cream blouse of crepe-backed satin, and an orange silk scarf with dagging on the ends. The shoes and narrow belt are of burgundy leather.



This model wears a tiered blouse in varying shades of orange; each tier is edged with dagging. It is paired with an A-line skirt of a soft brown wool herringbone, and the look is completed by brown leather boots topped with burgundy dagging.



This look begins with a pair of jeans and the cream-colored blouse. A brown leather jacket trimmed with burgundy dagging and an exposed zipper finishes the outfit.

I already showed the dagging collection in my Illustration class today. Tomorrow I present it to my History class, take the written final exam and I am finished!  NO school for a whole month!! Hooray!!!!